From Fox News:
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele on Sunday called on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for describing Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign as “light-skinned” with “no Negro dialect” unless he wants to have one.
I read Bob Herbert’s Op-Ed “Invitation to Disaster” on the New York Times website yesterday. I had problems when reading it; I found that I couldn’t get as excited about the topic as Mr. Herbert. I mainly feel a sense, not of desperation and an urge to fight back as he does, but one of resignation to the futility of fighting the problem. The People can vote themselves money, and are engaged in said activity with a vengeance.
Dramatis Personae
Barack Obama, President of the United States
Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader
REID: Mr. President, I want to sincerely apologize for that “Negro dialect” remark of mine.
OBAMA: Apology accepted.
REID: I certainly never would’ve said it if I knew it would one day be published. [Read more →]
Here in Arkansas we’ve had 3 inches of snow on the ground for the last week and temperatures have dipped below zero with the wind chill. Having lived on the shores of Lake Superior for ten years, I haven’t really been paying too much attention to it, but I saw something the other day that really drove home how cold it is in these parts:
I saw a known Democrat walking around with his hands in his own pockets for a change. Brrrr.
In the chart below, I’ve plotted IHE (Ishares Dow Jones Pharmaceuticals ETF), IHF (Ishares Health Care Providers), and IHI (Ishares Medical Devices), with SPY (S&P depository trust) included for comparison purposes. I’ve also included vertical lines marking various landmarks in the road to healthcare reform (left to right): May 11, healthcare industry players meet with Obama; June 8, Senate HELP committee releases initial draft bill; June 23, Obama presser on healthcare; July 22, Obama prime time presser on healthcare; July 31, Congress recesses to go home and get yelled at by constituents; November 19, Reid unveils bill in Senate; December 24, Senate passes healthcare bill. [Read more →]
Dramatis Personae
Barack Obama, President of the United States
Dick Cheney, Former Vice-President of the United States
OBAMA: Dick, you’ve been really tough on me of late.
CHENEY: Oh, that’s just politics, as Tip O’Neill told Reagan. It’s nothing personal — I just have to throw some red meat at the yahoos now and then. [Read more →]
Dramatis Personae
Barack Obama, President of the United States
Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader
Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House
OBAMA: Guys, what’s this I hear about you conferencing my health care bill in secret?
REID: Well, Mr. President, like they say, legislation of this type is a lot like sausage. It’s better if the people don’t know how it’s made.
OBAMA: But I promised during the campaign that all negotiations surrounding this bill would be public. [Read more →]
Ladies and gents, it seems like it’s time for a little peaceful civil disobedience. Many thousands, maybe many hundreds of thousands, gathered in DC to protest health care and Obama’s plan to ruin America last September, and their voice is being ignored by Congress. The polls, which show that the majority of Americans are against the health care bill, are also being ignored as the Democrats bribe, lie, and change their precious bill in an attempt to get something, anything, passed to give them the opening they need to take control of the American health care system.
With the year and season turning; perhaps also the decade and undoubtably the aging of the millenium that seemed so young moments ago, Americans high and low, both bailed and swamped are reflecting on their lives, their faith, the state of the world and the state of their relationships. Many find themselves feeling trapped in arrangements they made joyously and optimistically; wedded in haste and in public, they now regret at length and in the dark privacy of their hearts. Not exempted from this is the enthusiastic practitioner of plural, whimsical marriages, our fine and debonair President, Barack Obama. [Read more →]
Today marks one year since Israel’s military incursion into the Gaza Strip, known officially as “Operation Cast Lead.” On December 27th of ’08, Israel began a week of targeted air-strikes which included, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, “37 houses; 67 security and training sites; 20 workshops; 25 public and private institutions; seven mosques; and three educational institutions” in the Hamas-governed territory. This was followed on January 3rd by an air-land phase which lasted until Israel withdrew all combat forces on January 17th. At the end of the offensive, somewhere between 1150 and 1450 Palestinians had been killed — three different pro-Palestinian human rights sources estimated 1444, 1409, and 1387, respectively, while the Israel Defense Forces counted 1166; thirteen total Israelis had died at the end of operations. [Read more →]
I went to see James Cameron’s new film Avatar with my family yesterday. To call it a lot of fun seems almost unnecessary. It’d be better to offer a command than make a judgment: go check it out. I defy anyone who sees it on the big screen to deny the beauty of the locales, characters, spacecraft, and weaponry — all computer-generated, mind you — or the roller-coaster thrill of the battle scenes. It’s all directed and edited with precision and flair. As Dana Stevens wrote in her very apt Slate review, this is “a world so richly and specifically imagined that it’s thrilling just to dwell inside it.” And it culminates in a showdown that is immensely exciting and gratifying. [Read more →]
Greetings! I’ll be covering online hyperbole for WFTC — what it looks like, how it works, how it might be refashioned into more artful statements or smoother arguments. In a medium prone to unending tantrum, some focus on minimalism might counterbalance the tendency to write as if starved for attention. And what better way to begin than with a wee exaggeration about a big hyperbole? Today, Andrew Sullivan wrote a brief post entitled “What Paul Krugman Cannot Say.”
Extreme is easy; after all, it’s all downhill. And being extreme in Iran — well, who wouldn’t? It’s one of those perfect petri dishes for the reactionary way of life and thought.
Like Ireland and Israel and Serbia and Darfur and too many others, Iran is a place where it is historically easy for revenge to be permanently affixed to a lot of darn good reasons and then acted out ad infinitum. Saddle up your fatwa to a dogma and go blow shit up.
But, it’s not happening that way with the anti-government protestors in Iran, the Green Movement. They seem to be thinking carefully and tactically and even brilliantly about who they are and what they want the world to know about them. Under a vicious crackdown, they are coming up with new and devastatingly human ways to reach into the heart of a world that has moved on.
The latest? Iranian men are wearing headscarves.
In this era of massive federal spending and even larger deficits no revenue-generating option can be taken off the table. And none can have any greater potential than taxing that nefarious scoundrel named Kris Kringle, alias Santa Claus. Quite fortunately, a myriad of upcoming legislation will enable us to do just that and much more. [Read more →]
I’ve really gotta stop reading the HuffPo. Did anyone else see “Supreme Court to Hand Government to Republicans, Again: This Time, Forever.” by Paul Abrams today? Man, does that piece ever make your blood boil, or what?
Following up on my earier post about the court martial of three Navy SEALs who are accused of roughing up a known, brutal terrorist in Iraq, I’m pleased to report that there are a good number of people who are also outraged over the criminal charges against the SEALs.
One outraged American is Bill Bruhmuller, a retired Navy SEAL Master Chief Petty Officer.
I don’t know how many of you have been following Ronald Bailey’s wonderful posts about the Copenhagen Climate Conference ( Pt1, Pt2, and Pt3) over at reason.com, but he’s been doing an awesome job. I’ve really enjoyed reading his coverage, and I just finished reading his latest installment (Pt3.) last night.
What is it about the CIA that makes liberals and Democrats lose their common sense?
Arthur Herman asks this important question in his long piece in Commentary Magazine.
Right this moment a group of carbon criminals are getting away with murder. Where?
In Copenhagen, of course.
The U.N. estimates that 40,500 tones of carbon dioxide will be pumped into the atmosphere during the climate conference. And this doesn’t include the amount emitted personally by the participants.
Let’s hope when they finally enact carbon limitations that they include a ban on such events in the future. It’s a provision that even the global warming deniers might support.
The History Channel. Well, yes. If you love the apocalypse and Nazis, then you probably watch it a lot. Oh, and there’s also Pawn Stars. This weekend however they did something which had nothing to do with Nostradamus or death camps: they broadcast a weird, Beatnik-y concert performance entitled ‘The People Speak’, based on readings from Howard Zinn’s book A People’s History of the United States. [Read more →]
